Monday, February 19, 2007

dragging our arses all over the Kanto plain

A busy, busy day.

First of all, the happyokai. "Happyokai" is a kind of ceremony where everyone makes speeches. This was the happyokai for Japanese class, and my teacher was really pressuring me to participate. I kept thinking up excuses of why I couldn't do it, but they kept changing the date and I couldn't demur any longer without looking like an a-hole. So I wrote a really short, half-assed speech, and went. Since I couldn't stay for the whole thing, the teachers billed me first. Mine was the shortest speech in history. So much for more than ten years of Japanese study. I suck.

But happier times lay ahead. I hightailed it to Saitama, or DaSaitama, as discussed earlier. C. had bought me tickets to see Stevie Wonder for my birthday. Entering the arena, we discovered we had floor seats... even better, they were in the first block! We were only ten rows back, which is amazing for an arena...

I have this to say. Mr. Steven Wonder is love. That's all there is to it. He's a legend. The whole stadium was so frickin happy. And we danced our asses off, especially to "Superstitious" and "So What the Fuss?" Mr. Little Stevie is king. King.

As if that weren't a busy enough day, the Moment the show ended, we beat it to the station and jumped on the first train back south, toward Kamakura. Yes, Mr. Matthew Electrician was in town for his first Japan tour, and since we had missed his Kanto shows while we were in Hokkaido, it was essential that we caught this, his last show on his last night on the island.

Matt really shreds on the ukelele (and banjolele), and he's also the nicest, coolest guy ever. We sang along to all the songs we knew in the tiny, 15-capacity Café Goatee, and the whole audience provided the tap-dance routine during "Little Hands", since Matt was solo acoustic and didn't have any band to do that part. Super awesome. Please, please go and see Matt "The Electrician" Sever if he ever comes to your town. He is folky and punky and bluesy and funny.